UNIT 1: Discovery
Assignments:

Study the information in the "Lecture Notes" and PowerPoint presentation.
Read chapters "The First Americans" and "Exploration and Discovery" in the Digital History textbook. Pay particular attention to the conditions in Europe preceding exploration and expansion. Also, try and get a sense of how the Western Europeans assessment other cultures.
From the Virtual Reader, read "Columbus' Early Contact."
After you complete your readings, there are two activities:
A discussion forum - You will need to select 5 out of 15 possible graded discussion forums. See if this is one of the 5 topics that you want to participate in for your grade.
A mandatory quiz - This is a required online interactive quiz that is based upon the topic assignments.
More instructions for the quiz:
After reading the assigned material for this topic, take the quiz and submit it for immediate grading. If you choose, you may take the quiz a second time to improve your average score. Please note that a couple of the questions will change and the questions and answers will come in a different order from your first attempt.

Unit One Lecture Notes: Discovery of the Americas

Peopling the Western Hemisphere
Unit One

PEOPLING THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE
The human species was not born to the Western Hemisphere and did not even find it for thousands of years. Immigration to America began about 30,000 years ago. At intermittent periods, enough water would accumulate in massive glaciers worldwide to lower the sea level several hundred feet. The glaciers were virtually a "carpet of ice" as thick as 13,000 feet. During these periods, the Bering Strait would become a 1,300 mile-wide land bridge between North America and Asia. Game animals crossed, followed by hunters from Siberia and other parts of the continent. Life was abundant for these hunters. The western hemisphere was a hunter’s paradise; the wildlife had flourished in the absence of humankind.
As thousands of years passed, the ice caps receded, and the melted water covered the land bridge. The immigrants who had already crossed, fanned out all over North, Central, and South America into as many as 2200 separate tribes with different dialects, religions,and stages of cultural development. However, the Europeans, noting the straight black hair, prominent noses, and skin color, assumed the Indians at first to be one general society.
The Indians, themselves, however, felt little kinship with one another. Largely due to availability of natural resources and degree of agricultural skills, some tribes in 1492 were still at "cave-man" level of progress. The Coahuilticans of Texas, for example, had very limited food producing skills. Some of their best efforts to increase food supply included setting fish out to attract maggots (and thus extra meat). Another tactic was called the "second harvest," where hungry Indians examined their own feces, looking for food that was not entirely digested and could be entered into the mouth again. In addition, they consumed spiders, ant eggs, lizards, rattlesnakes, worms, insects, and rotting wood. Their homes were usually nothing more than windbreaks.
To the contrary, several South American tribes had cities as big as London or Paris, used a written language, and boasted impressive buildings, paved roads, and sophisticated governments.
The Aztecs had pyramids, palaces, canals, and zoos. The Incas had developed a sophisticated highway system and had even practiced a form of brain surgery.
THE VIKINGS DISCOVER AMERICA
We are certain that European Vikings (Lief Erickson and Eric the Red) actually discovered America in the 11th Century, but since nothing significant came of this discovery, it has received little historical attention. Nordic colonies were established in Greenland, Iceland, and Newfoundland, but cold weather and hostile natives brought an abrupt disbandment to the settlements.
In time, the record of these findings faded from Europe’s